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Welcome to Europa.
This site is part of the region of Europa in the online game NationStates. The region of Europa is a diverse community of nations, with a wide range of political and ideological values, working together through various institutions and alliances - at least when they're not threatening to go to war with each other. Whether you want to play it safe with a liberal democracy, set up a communist regime, or rule your citizens with an iron fist and the threat of turning them into dog food, Europa is a great region to play in.
As one of the oldest regions in the game, everybody who's anybody wants to try their hand at ruling their own country right here in Europa. Just head on over to the Forum and have a read through the sticky threads.
If you're curious about how all of this work, we've included some helpful links to get you started.
A good place to start is our Hitchhickers Guide to Europa.
Roleplayers will be glad to see our honest and fair RP rules.
Check out our map versions and discover how to apply.
Experiencing problem with this website? Our helpdesk is always open.
Have fun!
-- The Europans Team

Posts

Kedrovy | 0555hrs
21st January 2018
6 miles east of Salonica
The Hellenic Rus
"Yes Colonel, the intel provided from the @Iverica SO/AR units match up with our own aerial reconnaissance imagery. Highway E2 into Salonica is clear for penetration."
"And the rest of the city?"
"Right now, that's unclear. We're awaiting on the Ivericans to rendezvous with us for further information before proceeding with planning. The only thing we're certain on is the east entrance."
"So we wait for them. How long until they arrive?"
"Last we heard, they were fifteen minutes away. They're travelling by land, so I believe they're taking their time to avoid any IEDs."
"Good. Get the camp ready for them." Colonel Nilsen sent the soldier on his way, quickly returning to the papers on his desk. The brigade had made good progress since arriving at Port Sarov, and had spread aid and safety across several major towns along the way. With funding from the government, the people of The Hellenic Rus were now regularly receiving food and medicine. Construction workers had been drafted in to rebuild homes and community centres to reinstate structure and normality, and even nurses and doctors from the United States had been flown over to staff the hospitals. Generally, their Canamo neighbours were welcoming and receptive, and were eager to integrate into the Prymontian way.
The only issue was Pokrovsk. That had been a complete disaster, but the less said about that the better. The men involved had been disciplined accordingly, but there was no way of telling whether the locals would eventually warm up to the Prymontians after what had happened. At best, it'd be a town with strained relations to the capital. At worst, they'd rise against their assailants and cause more trouble than they were worth. Propaganda would only do so much. Their memories weren't short.
Once arriving at Kedrovy, the last stop before Salonica, the remainder of the supplies had been spent establishing a sizeable camp. This would be used as the HQ for the Salonica takeover, and would be where Elite Prymontian Defence Force soldiers would be landing in a couple of days time. Resistance was to be expected in Salonica, despite the best efforts of the Ivericans, and the standard Ground Forces could only do so much. Such a huge undertaking would require the big guns.
Camp Kedrovy had been established on the outskirts of the town. It was surrounded by a simple wire fence, with barbed wire here and there - they'd quickly realised when arming the fort that they were comically short on defence measures, and had to make do. As such, tanks and cannons were set up around the perimeter, warding off any terrorists and brave citizens. To any regular, educated person, it'd be obvious how desperately underfunded the USPGF were, but thankfully the terrorists who thought sending suicide bombers around the country and subsequently losing members was a good idea were short on brain cells. But, they did have guns and fingers to pull the triggers, and so a defence had to be made.
Air units were slowly moving in from Port Sarov. Their time in the land of napalm, terrorism and general discourse had been easy and slow, but now they were actually required for assistance. A nearby abandoned aerodrome had been secured by Sarov Resistance militia and was being utilised to store the planes until they were needed. For now, they lay in waiting, fuel tanks full and armed to the teeth, ready to unleash all hell on an already slaughtered city.
Captain Moore approached the barrier at the checkpoint, raising his binoculars and peering towards the horizon in search of their inbound western friends. His blue, numbed hands shook violently, the air icy and thin from the constant snowfall which had subsided in the past few hours. He cursed whoever thought it was a good idea to invade in the middle of the worst bloody winter in years. Lowering the binoculars, he joined a guard in the metal shelter of the checkpoint, taking shelter from the biting wind. The guard was armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a radio, which probably didn't work due to the weather. He'd spent his time twiddling his thumbs and smoking cigarettes, occasionally looking up for visitors.
"There are some guys due soon, about ten minutes or so. They're SO/AR. Check their ID and let them in."
"What are they for?"
"They're bringing cheese sandwiches and orange juice."
"Really? SO/AR are bringing that?"
"Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers. They're helping us with Salonica."
"We're actually going ahead with that?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't we?" Moore regarded the man with confusion, wondering why there was such scepticism. Salonica had always been part of the plan.
"Dunno, there was talk of the Defence Minister calling it off because of some... I don't know, someone mentioned some sh*t going down and it might reach Duval."
"No. Everything has been fine. It'll be a piece of cake." His words oozed confidence, but deep within, Moore knew that they were f*cked.

Restoration begins in Eastern Lithuania
Earlier today, the King ordered for the massive project of rebuilding the destroyed section of Eastern Lithuania to officially begin. Hundreds of trucks have begun to be sent to the region, each carrying boxes upon boxes of supplies. In addition to this, all new buildings built in blizzard-prone regions will be forced to use wind-resistant materials, hopefully stopping much of the future damage done by snowstorms.
Check back tomorrow for more updates from the Commonwealth Times, your local, and probably only, news network.

If the Leopard Throne was the heart of the Greater Holy Empire, it was not its brain. The throne was rarely occupied, even if the pomp and ceremony that surrounded it still went on as tradition dictated. Instead it was deep within the bowels of the building, in one of the many rooms that were often used for meetings of the Agios Basilikon Vestiarion, the Holy Imperial Cabinet. That was the group of close advisers to the Holy Emperor, who dictated policy and actions undertaken by Tagmatium. After all, one of the titles was “autocrat” and that title was lived up to. The room in use today was much like all of the others and something of a mirror of Tagmatium itself – a fusion of the ancient and new, antique and cutting edge.
The room was likely below ground level, although due to the labyrinthine corridors of the ancient building, it was easy to lose sense of direction. The only way to truly tell where the room was would be to climb out of one of the windows near the ceiling. And that would be rather beneath the dignity of any of the important figures present at the meeting. The room was dominated by a large oak table, probably older than many nations in Europa. However, that didn't stop it from being updated. At regular intervals along its surface, flat screens had been built into its surface adjacent to each seat. This was so that the occupants of the room could scroll through documents as necessary to what was being discussed. The floor was, again, decorated with a mosaic design, this time being geometric rather than illustrative. The walls were covered in wooden panelling, a design fad dating from the 18th Century – or 73nd Century by Tagmatine reckoning. When renovations were made, they often stayed. Other than that, the room was almost spartan in comparison to many of the richly, and somewhat gaudily, decorated rooms in the rest of the palace. It almost made the room suited to clandestine and secretive meetings, although that was not really the nature of what was taking place there.
The wood panelling did give the room a slightly claustrophobic air, in the opinion of the Megas Logothetes for War, Honorios Kontarian. It definitely was one of his least favourite meeting rooms. He much preferred the ones on the upper floors, or at least with bigger windows. They let much more light in. He had no idea why the Holy Emperor would have chosen this one. But, Honorios supposed, it was pretty much like all of the others.
He shuffled his bum on his seat and reached for the glass of water in front of him, draining the last of it and replacing it back on the table.
“Ultimately, @Adaptus once again becoming stable has made the handling of future events significantly easier,” he said. Other heads at the table nodded, especially the Megas Logothetai for Foreign Affairs and Internal Affairs. “It likely means that the only true local threat that we might face would be from the Great Queendom of @Suverina. And even then, they have been quiet of late.”
Whilst Kontarian personally had some old suspicions about Tonaras of Internal Affairs, he knew that Goulielmos of Foreign Affairs was sincere. All three of them, alongside the Tagmatine Intelligence Network and Epistrategiai, the General Staff, had worked hard on various plans for the stabilisation of the Greater Holy Empire's western neighbour as it went through the period known within the Federal Kingdom as the “Great Lull”. As Adaptus became increasingly chaotic, it began to seem that direct intervention in the country would be within the best interests of Tagmatium, if only to stop the disruption to the economy of the western portion of Tagmatium's territories.
Whether the grand invasion of Operation Flavios or the smaller schemes of Operations Georgios and Mikhael, the projected outcomes were not good. The former would have had vast resources thrown into it, including large scale amphibious landings, paradrops and massed advances by land-based forces. The latter were more concentrated, aiming to penetrate and seize regional capitals with seaborne landings or the national capital with an airborne operation respectively, both coupled with large scale ground operations. However, no matter which of the options selected, the projected outcomes had varyingly been to ignite strengthening resistance against Tagmatine operations and then a tumble into all-out war between the nations or to precipitate a genuine civil war, into which Tagmatium was dragged.
So the Greater Holy Empire had been content to watch as Adaptus managed to settle itself onto a much more steady course, even with a couple of stumbles. But the untimely and somewhat suspicious death of King Jovian and the election of King Magnus caused consternation in Tagmatium. As the border war that Magnus had almost entirely caused himself began to intensify, a decision was made to try to stabilise the Occident and bring down the king-turned-military dictator. Operation Mikhael was given the green light.
When news reached the Agios Basilikon Vestiarion that Magnus had been deposed, there was perhaps the most genuine panic Kontarian had seen in the Tagmatine capital since the rebels had marched on it during the Civil War. He, in his own words, “shat a brick” when he had been told. The order to cross the Adapton border had already been given and the first units were beginning to advance beyond their start lines within Tagmatium.
'Large scale military exercise undertaken at short notice' was probably one of the pleasant euphemisms for what could have been the biggest clusterf*ck in Tagmatine history. The sudden order to halt had caused the largest number of related fender benders in the history of humanity as several army groups were brought to a sharp halt just short of the border.
“It does mean attention can be turned to our most pressing concern,” Kontarian continued. He tapped the touch screen in front of him and brought up a picture of the northern part of the Occident, focussing on both Beautancus and Machina Haruspex, an image that was mirrored on every screen in the room. It was likely redundant. Everyone within the room already knew what the concern Kontarian was talking about. “We have not heard from our ally for some time now. We – that is, the Logothesion of War and the Epistrategiai, have been hesitant in carrying out active reconnaissance towards our ally, just in case we provoked something in return. However, both intelligence within the Logothesion, the military and the Tagmatine Intelligence Network have detected nothing from the Haru government in some time through passive means.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Andronikos Keftedes nodding along. Kontarian didn't like the pale spymaster all that much but this had been causing the pair of them not a little lost sleep. Precisely what was going on to Tagmatium's north and east needed to be investigated. Rumour did have it that the semi-civilised hill tribes had been crossing the border more and more regularly. That they were able to cross back at all was something of a surprise. Not like the Haru at all.
“Essentially, Imperial Sovereign, we need to undertake active recce towards the Haru, if they are still there,” said Kontarian, addressing Kommodos directly. Again, the spymaster nodded, as if his agreement somehow added more weight to the Megas Logothetes' words. Kontarian felt himself somewhat irked by it. “We will likely start off with high altitude overflights and then move from there. Small-scale foot recce is something that we have considered, but we will need to see if the Haru react to this. Our relationship had significantly improved because of the Karthay Incident, so we could get away with foot recce without anything untoward happening but I think that we should play it safe.”
The Holy Emperor had sat with his elbows on the table with his fingers steepled together, leaning slightly forward in his chair. Like everyone else in the room, his eyes had been flicking from the images on the flat screen in front of him, which had been showing images pertinent to what Kontarian was saying, and to the speaker himself. Once the man had finished speaking, the Holy Emperor sat up straighter in his chair.
“Megas Logothetes Kontarian, that will be a sensible path to take,” said Kommodos. “Have that actioned as soon as possible. The quicker we get to the bottom of that, the better.”
“Thank you, your majesty,” Kontarian gave a nod of acknowledgement. Merely calling the Holy Emperor 'your majesty' might have struck some as too informal for the Agios Basileos kai Autokrator Arhomanion, but Kommodos allowed his more trusted advisers more leeway.
“Is there anything else that needs to be discussed at this meeting of the Vestiarion?” asked the Holy Emperor.
“Imperial Sovereign, two nations in Argis have suffered from Communist revolutions,” Goulielmos spoke. The images on the touch screens split, showing a map of Argis with the nations of @Ahrana and @Astriedan highlighted. “As yet, we don't know whether they are connected in any way. However, the reports from Astriedan are somewhat... confused.”
Goulielmos shrugged, the gesture causing enough movement for his glasses to slide down his nose. He paused for a moment as he re-seated them.
“It appears that it wasn't an actual Communist uprising, but something engineered by their monarch and his son. The former has been deposed and the latter is on the run.”
There was a pause for a moment. It struck Kontarian as quite a strange circumstance. After all, why would a monarch try to use Communists for their own end? It wouldn't likely go well. And, seemingly, it hadn't. Barbaroi were a strange breed.
“And in Ahrana?” asked Kommodos.
“The Communists overthrew their old king and they seem to be making a fairly good go of it,” the Megas Logothetes for Foreign Affairs answered. “Nothing seems to have put any Tagmatine citizens in danger, although I'll admit that I don't know how many are there, if any at all. I'd recommend that we towards normalising relations with them, even if they are Communist.”
“Is there any indication that the Ahranaian Communists had any outside help?” This question from Kommodos wasn't aimed at Goulielmos but they Kephale of the Tagmatine Intelligence Network. However, Kontarian was not the only person at the table who inferred what Kommodos was referring to. A decade before, a terrorist attack had caused widespread destruction in Easteia and the Communist Party of Tagmatium was to blame. Despite outlawing and then crushing the party, the leader had never been caught, even nearly ten years later.
“No, your majesty,” rasped the spymaster, shaking his head. “We have investigated all as closely as we can, but no links have yet to come to light.”
Kommodos gave a curt nod, apparently satisfied with the answer. “Then I see no reason for not recognising the new regime as the legitimate one.”
The Greater Holy Empire was pragmatic, even if the atheistic ideology ran counter to everything that it stood for.
“One more thing, your majesty,” interjected Goulielmos. “It appears that Adaptus has recently butted heads, along with a handful of other nations, with a nation called @Derthalen. The Federated Kingdom went so far as to put a blockade in place against them.”
Kontarian looked down at the map now showing on the screen. It focused on this new nation and displayed the area it had occupied, as well as a smaller inset map showing Adaptus. A few boxes also mentioned the nations that had protested the expansion. It noted that Derthalen was both expansionist and isolationist – a bit of a strange combination and one that hardly boded well.
“It is perhaps worth discussing the situation with Adaptus and the other nations involved, Megas Logothetes,” replied the Holy Emperor after a moment's consideration. “It is time that we contacted the Adapton government. I shall adjourn this meeting here and we will examine our response later.”
The Holy Emperor stood and the rest of the room got to their feet at the same time. They bowed to their sovereign, who returned the gesture.
“Good morning, Endoxotatoi.”
One of the Holy Emperor's personal bodyguards stepped forward and moved the chair back for him. There were eight of them, four from the Maghlabitai, who were akin to the ancient Lictores of Arome and four from the Basilikon Anthropoi. The former were dressed in red robes and golden armour and carried maces in the manner of the fasces, whilst the latter wore pure white robes and golden armour. Along with them was the Mystikos, Nikephoros Boionnanes, the Holy Emperor's private secretary. They formed up in a group around the Holy Emperor and swept out of the room.
Bending forward to gather up his papers from the table in front of him, Kontarian resisted the urge to shake his head. Even after working closely with the man over over a decade, he wasn't sure whether the use of the title of' “Endoxotatoi” was ironic or sincere. It was a title due to the members of the Basilikon Vestiarion and it meant “most glorious”. However, it was a senatorial title and Kommodos had not called that organisation together for years. Despite being democratically elected, the Tagmatine leader showed no love for democracy.

We've recently spoken about how we've brought our Gallery and Blog apps bang up to date with interface overhauls to bring them inline with the high standards our customers expect.
Keeping this in mind, we're thrilled to announce that we've taken Commerce right back to 2009.
This needs an explanation.
Way back in 2009, Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President. Minecraft was put into beta, Slumdog Millionaire was released to critical praise and we had a product called IP.Subscriptions.
IP.Subscriptions was a lightweight member subscriptions manager that allowed members to purchase elevated permissions via a user group upgrade.
It was a fine little app. However, on the horizon we had a brand new eCommerce app in development. Then called Nexus, now called Commerce (we took months to come up with that).
It made sense for us to merge the products into one app given they both had overlapping functionality. They both could create packages to promote members to a new user group. Commerce was much more developed as an invoicing and billing system.
Everyone was happy.
Almost.
Commerce has grown to be an incredibly powerful app. It can sell anything from physical products like t-shirts, to digital products such as license keys and it can even manage your hosting set-up.
We use it for our support and billing systems, so we know how robust it is.
While it's an incredibly powerful commerce system, setting up basic subscriptions packages became a little more complex.
Over the past few years we've received a lot of feedback on this.
We've listened.
Commerce Member Subscriptions
We've built a brand new section into Commerce specifically for membership subscriptions.
Let's take a look at this in more detail.
On the front end, there's a very clear and easy to understand page for membership subscriptions.
The main subscriptions interface
Here you can see all the available packages, which one you're currently subscribed to and the upgrade and downgrade options.
A simple way to upgrade
There's several choices for costing upgrades in the Admin CP, here we have chosen to charge the difference between packages.
Get to your subscriptions easily
Your subscriptions are easily found in the user menu.
If the Admin allows, the package you're subscribed to appears as a badge on your profile.
There's also a little widget showing the packages which you can drag and drop to the sidebar for an additional prompt for non-subscribers.
This gives Invision Community a very clear and easy to understand interface for subscriptions which lives outside of the Commerce store and its packages.
Now, let's dive into the Admin CP
The main engine for this feature is the package list. This is in a separate area within Commerce.
The list also shows the number of currently active and inactive subscribers. This links to the list of subscribers.
Other than Bob having a total nightmare, you can easily view which members are currently active. The buttons link you to the Commerce invoice and purchase.
If you wish to add a member to a subscription without charging them (you generous soul, you), then that is easily possible.
Creating a new subscription package is very straight forward. We've built a new form which is stripped down to the fundamental items you'll need for a subscription.
As you would expect, there are several settings to control the system.
A few things worth mentioning here:
You can force new members to purchase a subscription on sign-up
You can show or hide the profile badge indicating which package they purchased.
You can choose to allow upgrades or downgrades.
You can choose how you'd like to charge for upgrades or downgrades
Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback over the years. We're really pleased to present this new feature and hope that it'll make your daily lives just a little easier.
Let us know what you think!
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